


Laws of Thermodynamics

by thisbluegirl



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Bucky is not okay, Consent Issues, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff and Angst, Let's Pretend Civil War Isn't Happening, M/M, Mild Dissociation, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, PTSD, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Recovery, Steve is less emotionally constipated than we thought, Tags Are Hard, Unrepentant Fluff, Unrepentant Metal Arm Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-01 18:26:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6531145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluegirl/pseuds/thisbluegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He never had to relearn how to love Steve Rogers. It might be the one thing he never forgot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First Law

“When you can’t bear something but it goes on anyway, the person who survives isn’t you anymore; you’ve changed and become someone else, a new person, the one who did bear it after all.” -Austin Grossman, _Soon I Will Be Invincible_

 

The First Law of Thermodynamics: Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.

*** 

He thinks he has always been cold. When he was Bucky, living in a cold-water walkup in Brooklyn. Or Sergeant James Barnes, on his belly in the cold mud of a European foxhole. Or the Winter Soldier, frozen so often he never seemed to thaw. _Cold_ is not so much a sensation as a state of being, only notable in its absence. 

***

In the beginning – the new beginning, the one where he’s not the Asset anymore – stripping down leaves him exposed, vulnerable. He remembers sharp blasts of water from a pressurized hose, an industrial drain in the floor, remembers wincing with cold as he huddled into himself, waiting for everything to go finally, blessedly numb.

So in the beginning, it’s quick splashes of water over his face, standing at a sink. Then, later, after he makes his way back to Steve, a washcloth dipped hurriedly in a sink-basin full of warm water, drawn  even more hurriedly under arms, between legs, as he trades one shirt, one pair of sweatpants for another. In the beginning, he doesn’t think about where the clean clothes come from; they just keep showing up outside the bedroom door. Always a little too big, always smelling of Steve. Fluffy white towels appear, too, always with a new, unopened box of plain, white, unscented soap on top.

But in the beginning, the absurdly large shower stall in the bathroom in the bedroom in Steve’s apartment in Avengers Tower reminds him of the tank. Or a prison cell with its built-in benches and (given Stark’s reputation, probably bulletproof) glass walls. It’s big enough for four or five people, and he can’t even begin to guess why one person could possibly need all those faucets and handles and showerheads and hoses. But. He destroyed the tank. And no prison remains that can hold him. He sits against the wall and looks at the shower and makes himself be still. 

***

He had known Steve on the bridge. On the helicarrier. HYDRA hadn’t managed to erase everything – not permanently. It comes back in pieces. Shards. With broken edges that slice him up inside.

He had known from the moment he walked away from Steve on the riverbank that Steve would come for him. Who Steve would find, though, that was unknown, unknowable. An answer to a question he couldn’t begin to ask. So he stayed one step ahead, hunting down what remained of HYDRA, leaving a trail of bodies and classified documents in his wake. Fitting jigsawed pieces together with no frame of reference.

When he could go no further, his trajectory altered, sending him ricocheting back. To Steve. To memory. To answers. To the question he cannot yet ask. He’s still the weapon HYDRA made him, but he’s not an automaton anymore. His is the finger on the trigger now, the form, the shape, of what he could become swimming into focus but still out of range. 

***

In the beginning, he had only bits and pieces, the word _Steve_ like a single point of light in the dark. Now, he remembers a lot. Too much. Certainly more than Steve realizes. But still so little of it fits together, and the edges are still sharp and treacherous, but he has no recourse for that.

Steve and Sam say words like _survivor, agency, consent_. It doesn’t matter how many times Steve or Sam tell him it’s okay to want to things, to ask for things, to refuse. _Choice_ is not something with which he has had much experience.

So he takes what’s offered. A room with a door for privacy. A too-big, too-soft bed. Steve Rogers in the next room, snoring, safe. A bathroom as big as a pre-war Brooklyn tenement. Hot water. Soft towels and clothes that smell like Steve, Steve, Steve.

*** 

Eventually, he works up to an experimental five-minute rush of strip-down-get-wet-lather-everything-rinse-get-out-rub-dry-get-dressed. But the way Steve looks at him that day, the way Steve _breathes him in_ as he walks past him to the coffee pot, it twists something inside him, and he decides then and there that he isn’t intimidated by the glass cage of the shower stall anymore. 

Five minutes turn into ten. Ten turn into fifteen. What had been a luxury in 1930s Brooklyn becomes a necessity. Soon, it’s no longer simply necessary but anticipated. 

The showers get longer and longer. He stands under the spray until his skin is pink and his flesh fingers pruned, until he can imagine the heat seeping into his bones. He notices (and he _notices_ that he notices) that the metal arm is never affected – but then, he never had a problem in the rain or snow, or the Potomac River. 

He never lets the water run cold. If it did, he’d remember the river. He’d remember Steve falling. He’d remember diving – falling? – after him, dragging him to shore, waiting and watching until Steve coughed riverwater out of his lungs. Walking away with a hurricane of jagged pieces suddenly whipping up in the void inside his head.

This thing, he very deliberately does _not_ remember. 

***

Steve calls him Bucky, Buck, pal. Sometimes Steve calls him _jerk_ , usually with his face flushed deep red and a dopey smile on his face. The others call him James or Barnes or Sergeant. He doesn’t feel like Bucky yet. He’s not sure he feels like any of the names. But he knows he’s not the Asset anymore.

***

Other things start appearing with the fluffy white towels. A long-handled brush. A bar of scented soap that smells so much like Steve, it pricks his eyes, and he shoves it into an unused drawer and tries not to think about it.

A giant natural sponge ( _unpleasant texture_ ). A poufy, fluffy thing that looks like mesh or lace all gathered up into a ball ( _unpleasant texture_ ). A small, attractive box – from Pepper, it says – of little white tablets that remind him of Alka-Seltzer but don’t smell like antacid. He follows the instructions and drops one on the floor of the shower. As soon as the water hits it, it effervesces, and a wave of memory nearly knocks him to his knees. Steve’s mother – Mrs. Rogers – Sarah, her willowy arms enveloping him, her soft voice and kind eyes, how much she loved Steve, how much she loved him – loved _Bucky_ – for looking after Steve.

He lets the lavender-scented steam pull him down deeper into the memory, and he slides onto the floor of the shower, head tipped back under the spray so he can pretend it’s tears streaming down his face, can imagine the ice inside cracking open under the weight of what those boys lost – what was taken from them. Can pretend he remembers how to feel.

He doesn’t know how much time has passed when he finally realizes the hot water hasn’t run out. But then, the whole place runs on an arc reactor, so he shouldn’t be surprised. He stands and methodically proceeds through an accelerated version of what has become his routine. As he dries himself with yet another fluffy towel, he catches sight of his bloodshot eyes in the mirror. He won’t have to explain himself to Steve – Steve will blame it on his new obsession with hour-long, too-hot showers. He flings the remainder of the box of tablets unceremoniously into the trash.

***

On good days, he goes to mission briefings, gives tactical advice, and can go six or eight hours seeming like a real human boy (albeit one armed to the teeth with knives). On good days, Steve smiles, calls him _jerk_ , reaches for him and catches himself, a tiny frown flickering across his forehead before smiling again, a little threadbare this time. On good days, he tries not to let it bother him.

On bad days, he makes lists. Names, dates, locations, schematics. He’s caught glimpses of his eyes on bad days. They’re empty – or, no, that’s not right. They’re the Soldier’s eyes. On bad days, he doesn’t think Bucky Barnes is ever coming back. Steve’s worry hangs around him like a yoke. Steve hovers, purses his lips, and the frown between his eyebrows is like another person in the room.

***

Under the endless fall of hot water, he has time to think about his body as something other than a machine. Shades of sensation seep back into his skin, registering more than just hot or cold, pain or absence-of-pain. The mundane movement of his hands, metal and flesh, over skin – lather, rinse, repeat – slowly evolves into something else. Something he might remember. Something he had forgotten or maybe never knew.

He is surprised at the sudden awareness of his metal hand, slick with soap, gliding over the jut of his hip and descending between his legs, surprised at the answering surge of heat coiling low in his belly. The feeling is so foreign, he slumps forward, catching and propping himself against the wall of the shower with both hands. His breath hitches in his throat. For a moment, it had felt like someone else was touching him. For a moment, he had felt something…

He rinses quickly and shuts off the spray. Sometimes the heat from the water stays with him for hours. Today, he’s shivering before he’s even dry.

***

He wants to be warm.

He _wants_ , and that’s a new thing all on its own. And now that he knows how to want ( _Sam and Steve will be so proud_ ), he wants _warm_.

Wanting a thing and knowing how to get it are not the same.

Steve must notice. He starts to leave blankets on every available surface. The closet fills up with hoodies in every color. Piles of pillows appear in pools of sunlight. It’s not enough.

Even the temperature of the shower at its highest setting is no competition for the furnace that is Steve Rogers. And apparently, to get _warm_ , he needs _contact_. But. Brushing past on his way to the coffee maker, passing in the hallway, stupid giant super-thigh conspicuously _not_ making contact on the sofa – Steve so carefully _doesn’t_ touch him, it’s getting irritating.

Granted, in the new beginning, unanticipated contact would likely have been met with violence. But he hasn’t been warm in so long, and he can’t stay in the shower all day. So he puts himself in Steve’s way, daring Steve, challenging him to keep his distance, and making it as difficult as possible.

He steps in front of Steve at the coffee maker and feels the brush of that massive chest against his back, hears Steve’s sudden intake of breath. When Steve tries to steer around him in the hallway, he sidesteps, metal arm colliding with super-bicep. He catches Steve’s startled expression out of the corner of his eye. On the sofa, he shifts, knocking his knee against Steve’s just shy of aggressively, and quietly apologizes without making eye contact. Steve goes stock-still but doesn’t move. Their thighs press together, a line of tension vibrating like a live circuit between them.

***

“Accidentally” touching Steve doesn’t make things better. It makes them worse.

His body, the not-machine, starts responding to the contact. Prickling at the back of his neck as the fine hairs there stand on end. Goosebumps on his arms. The familiar pre-fight surge of adrenaline in his veins, though he knows he doesn’t want to fight.

He remembers touching Steve, Steve touching him; he just doesn’t remember how it felt. It’s in his head like a newsreel, like sepia photographs in someone else’s photo album. There was a time when they slung their arms around each other, jostled each other in good humor, hugged when they were sad or glad or just wanted reassurance that the other was there. He sees Steve’s arms wrapped around him tight, the first night after the factory. Steve’s face buried against the nape of his neck. Steve’s voice, when he thought Bucky was asleep, “ _Don’t leave me again, Buck_.”

So he knows Steve used to touch him, used to _want_ to touch him. He wants to remember what it felt like, to know what it feels like now. He just doesn’t know how to get him to do it again.

***

He goes to a mission briefing. Romanoff and Barton are off somewhere to do what superspies do, and Barnes (the Winter Soldier part of him, anyway) has intel that might prove useful. In thanks, Barton introduces him to the fist bump and seems to get a gleeful kind of satisfaction when the metal fist is proffered instead of the flesh one. He does _not_ offer to fist bump Romanoff. Her smirk stirs up wary whispers in the dark of his mind.

In the gym, he and Sam run the obstacle course a dozen times before Sam declares him “worse than Captain On-Your-Left” and collapses in a heap.

He doesn’t train with the team (when they’re all even in the building), or spar with Steve (what with all the almost _killing_ him). Romanoff… no, the whispers suggest that would be a bad choice. Instead, he does fifty deadweight one-arm pullups, a series of inverted crunches, and then runs through a full barre routine. He doesn’t think about what it means that he knows this. It’s muscle memory – there’s nothing in his head yet to explain it. By the end, his muscles are burning pleasantly, and his mind is quiet again.

He takes the long way back up to the apartment and finds Sam there already, settling into the armchair next to Steve with three boxes of pizza sitting on the coffee table between them.

“Hey, pal!” Steve calls, smile like sunshine. “Great timing! We got pizza. Remember Lombardi’s? From that time we went to the Met? They’re still there! Well, I mean, I guess they closed for a while, but they opened again, so we got three. Margherita, pepperoni, the works. Hey, Totonno’s is still around, too, but they moved to Coney Island. We should take a ride out there sometime…”

Steve stops suddenly. The rare guiltless enthusiasm slides off his face. He can see Steve turning it into _self-indulgent nostalgia_ in his mind.

“Buck…” Steve starts.

He shakes his head, ignoring Steve’s stricken expression, gives a little half-smile, hooks his metal thumb towards the hall.

“Gonna shower.” He narrows his eyes at Sam, who is watching the proceedings with his carefully-neutral-third-party face in full effect. “Don’t eat my pizza.”

Sam holds his hands up, eyes wide in mock-innocence, but grinning now. Steve looks like a kicked puppy. _Jesus, fuck, Steve._

In the bathroom, he sheds his sweaty workout gear and steps under the hottest water he can stand. 

Steve thinks there’s a future that doesn’t involve keeping the whereabouts of the world’s most notorious brainwashed assassin a carefully guarded secret. A future without HYDRA or SHIELD or whatever other shady organization trying to take over the world. Where said notorious assassin could ride out to Coney Island on the back of Steve’s Harley for pizza and not a) be inadvertently triggered by seemingly random stimuli, b) present potential enemies with a painfully conspicuous target, or c) endanger Steve by association.

Steve’s naïveté is so familiar, for a moment he actually feels like Bucky.

As much as he would like to stand in the endless stream of hot water until his mind is blank again, he doesn’t entirely trust the twits _(okay, Sam’s fine – Steve’s a twit)_ in the living room not to polish off all three pizzas without him. He dresses quickly and vaults over the back of the couch just as they open the second box.

Lombardi’s pizza margherita tastes like a memory. He’s eighteen again, standing outside the restaurant with Steve, sauce on his face, soot from the coal oven on his fingers. He’s eighteen and maybe life hasn’t been entirely kind to him so far, but it’s nothing compared to what awaits him, and Steve looks at him like he hung the moon, and he didn’t know dough and cheese and tomatoes could be so _good_.

He sinks back against the cushions of the sofa, sauce on his face and soot on his fingers, and the look on Steve’s face makes his brain stutter. He shifts over slightly and “accidentally” bumps Steve’s thigh with his own, and Steve doesn’t flinch, just presses back and leaves it there, like it’s no big deal, like they’ve been able to do this all along.


	2. The Second Law

The Second Law of Thermodynamics: The entropy of any isolated system always increases.

***

In the morning, with the new memory of Lombardi’s pizza and the warm pressure of Steve’s leg against his own, he tries the thing with the soap and his metal hand again.

His skin prickles with sensation, hot water pounding his shoulders, cascading down his back, trickling between his legs. Fingers slick with soap glide across hard muscle, soft skin. The slight catch of the metal plates against his nipples makes his whole body jerk and brings the thick length of him to full hardness. He leans against the wall of the shower, imagining the breadth of Steve’s chest behind him, and wraps flesh fingers around his cock, feeling the press of Steve’s thigh against him.

He knows ( _or rather, has been stabbed in the brain with several sharp fragments which suggest_ ) this isn’t the first time he’s worked himself over to the image of Steve Rogers, but in his memory, Steve is so small it feels _wrong_ , and past-Bucky is ashamed to have such thoughts about his best friend, whose will is so strong but whose body so frail, and past-Bucky is supposed to _protect_ him. But now, whoever the Soldier-James-Bucky is, he _wants_ , bone-deep, desire dead for so long he _will_ have it now, will keep it, will let it fill his body with fire, white-hot, burning away any trace of hesitation about what he feels, thinks he has always felt for the best and bravest person he’s ever known. 

His hand flies along his shaft, the feeling both familiar and foreign, and the orgasm hits him with the force of a vibranium shield, leaving him breathless, boneless, slumped against the wall of the shower. The burn of unshed tears behind his eyelids is both unexpected and unsurprising.

He sits under the spray until he can breathe again, washes himself, dries, pulls on a clean pair of sweatpants. He climbs back in bed and drags the covers over his head. He’s not ready to find out what his body will do if he touches Steve today.

***

He’s been making lists again.

This time, it’s Stockholm, 28 February 1986, 22:21 UTC. A man and woman, walking arm in arm along a quiet street, unaware they’ve been watched, stalked. The Asset is in civilian clothes, ostensibly bundled against the frigid Swedish winter and late hour. The Asset walks toward them, face tucked into the high neck of a dark wool sweater, collar of a black pea coat turned up against the cold, black watch cap pulled down low, COP 357 Derringer tucked snugly against his side. Four steps away from the couple, as they approach an intersection, he stops, draws, fires twice. The man is dead before he hits the ground. The woman is gravely injured – she wasn’t the target and she won’t be able to identify the shooter, so she lives. The Asset tucks the weapon into one of the pea coat’s deep pockets, turns the corner, and disappears into the dark. The assassination of the former Prime Minister of Sweden remains unsolved.

His mind fills with snow, with a sound like static. He knocks over the chair when he stands, and his thigh catches the corner of the table. He lurches around an end table and his metal shoulder dents a corner of the wall as he stumbles towards the bedroom with a vague notion that he should lie down before he blacks out.

Eventually, the snow begins to settle and the static starts to fade. He doesn’t know how long he’s been lying on the floor of the shower under the spray, curled into himself, willing himself to dissolve, to melt like the ice in his veins.

He vaguely registers the knocking on the bathroom door, Steve’s voice cautious, then concerned, then panicked as the door flies open – it wasn’t locked, it’s never locked, he’s not hiding from Steve.

Steve flings open the shower door, slips barefoot on the wet tile floor and slides down next to him, gathers him into his arms, sits up and drags him into his lap. Steve’s hand is on his face, tilting his chin up. Steve’s blue eyes are filled with terror.

Steve is saying a name over and over again like a prayer and curse, “ _Bucky_ , oh God, Bucky, _Buck_ , _look at me_ , Jesus, Bucky, please, _please_ …”

Water pours down over them. With some effort, he meets Steve’s eyes, and the arms around him tighten convulsively. Steve’s expression crumbles, his voice cracks with something between a laugh and a sob.

“ _There you are_ ,” Steve breathes. “Hey, pal, you okay?”

He feels one corner of his mouth pull up, a half-smile as apology. “You’re warm,” he murmurs.

That gets another laugh-sob and Steve pulling him further into his lap. Steve doesn’t seem to have noticed that his clothes are soaking wet and he’s holding nearly 200 pounds of naked assassin in his arms. Water runs in rivulets down Steve’s ridiculous face; droplets cling to his ridiculous eyelashes.

“You’re wet,” he murmurs.

That gets a genuine laugh from Steve, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Bucky, I don’t give a _damn_. I will sit in here with you all night if you want.”

“Nah,” he answers. “I think I’m done.” He gives Steve another little half-smile. He has started to notice all the places where he’s touching Steve – where _Steve_ is finally touching _him_ – and he feels himself stirring, starting to harden against his own thigh. He doesn’t think Steve has noticed. Steve is watching his face, and he must see something flicker there because the little frown is back between Steve’s eyebrows.

“You scared the hell out of me, Bucky,” Steve murmurs. “I don’t know whether to punch your stupid face or kiss it.”

 _Yes_. Punch. Kiss. Both. Neither. Anything. To feel something. _Say something._ “Kiss it.”

“What?”

 _Can’t say it again. Said too much the first time._ “You heard me, Rogers.”             

He doesn’t look at Steve’s face, doesn’t want to see the rejection, disgust, disappointment that must surely be reflected there, looks at his throat instead and tracks the spike in Steve’s pulse and respiration.

And then Steve’s mouth is crashing into his.

There’s a moment where he freezes, his mind filling with static again, unable to recall a single point of reference for appropriate responses.

Steve pulls back, face flushed with what is clearly embarrassment, starts to mutter, “Sorry…” and that cannot be allowed, Steve cannot be _sorry_ about this, and he flings his metal arm around Steve’s shoulders and drags him down again, meeting the question in Steve’s eyes with a look he hopes communicates _consent, fucking consent, Steve_ , and kisses him, hard.

He has the slightly hysterical thought that he would have passed out in the shower weeks ago if that was what it took to get Steve to touch him again.

Steve whines into his mouth and hauls him closer, until he’s practically sitting in Steve’s lap, their arms locked around each other. Steve’s lips are warm. Steve’s body under his wet clothes is warm, and Steve’s hands splayed across his bare skin are _so_ _warm_. And Steve is a _good_ kisser, all gentle and sweet, but Steve is taking it way too slow. He nips at Steve’s lower lip and soothes it with his tongue until Steve opens up and their tongues are _finally_ sliding together, slick and rough and urgent.

The kick of adrenaline is disorienting: how to differentiate the imperatives to fight or fuck? To inflict pain or inflict pleasure? The clash of bodies, the violence of penetration, sought or avoided? The hot spill of bodily fluids over quick, capable hands…

His fingertips find the throb of a pulse in a throat and he falters, behind his eyelids a flipbook of his hands, his _metal_ hand, around other throats…

 _Oh_ , but the low sound Steve makes, the way his breath stutters, brings _now_ , _here_ , sharply back into focus. Steve is warm, Steve is solid, Steve is real, Steve is an anchor.

He thinks he could kiss Steve for hours, he _wants_ to, but it’s only been a matter of moments when Steve pulls back. Infinitesimally, maybe, but enough to notice, even with their lips still brushing together. Steve’s hand moves on his back, a whisper-light, barely-there movement that telegraphs as _wait, stop, don’t_ as clearly as if Steve had shouted it.

He can’t, _won’t_ let Steve see distress on his face, but if Steve stops touching him now… what if he never touches him again.

He pulls back from Steve but doesn’t meet his eyes, swallowing thickly against a flash of _mistake = correction = coldcoldcold..._

He just learned how to want this. If _Steve_ doesn’t want this – _mistake, mistake, no, NO_ … _fuck, get a grip, Soldier. You’ve gone without it for so long, what difference does it make now?_

Steve’s voice is low, sad. “Bucky, no…”

 _Aaaaaand there it is_. He starts to draw away, but relaxing his desperate grip takes considerably more effort than anticipated.

Now, Steve’s voice is sharp, “ _Bucky_ ,” like a reprimand, but instead of pushing him away, Steve’s arms are… tightening around him?

When he meets Steve’s eyes, Steve ducks in close again to bring their foreheads together. “I’m not going anywhere, jerk. At least not anywhere that you’re not going, too. But I’m starting to feel like a drowned rat here, Buck.”

Steve huffs a laugh against his lips and kisses him again. And kisses him again. And again.

And when his stupid broken brain finally decides to get with the program, he realizes Steve has been sitting in the shower with him fully clothed this whole time and the endless cascade of hot water might not be as soothing as when one is _un_ clothed.

He clings to Steve a little longer, has to have a little internal argument with himself to _let go_ , and slides off his lap. Steve kneels up and stands, careful not to slip on the wet tile. Steve shuts off the water and holds out his hands.

“Let’s get you out of here, huh?” Steve’s smile is like sunshine, every time.

He still feels a little raw around the edges from his little trip down memory lane, and from the kissing, so he lets Steve pull him off the floor and wrap him in a giant, fluffy white towel. When Steve starts to dry his hair with the edges of the towel, though, the metal hand locks around his wrist.

“Steve,” he growls, “I’m the goddamn Winter Soldier, not a fucking baby.”

Steve is unfazed.

“Mmhmm,” Steve replies, smiling a tiny smug smile. “And you’re also Bucky Barnes, and you’re wet and naked, and I’ve been fantasizing about this since we were kids, so zip it, jerk, and let me do this for you.” Steve’s confidence wavers but his eyes are earnest, searching. “It’s okay to say no, though, okay Bucky? If you don’t want me to, I won’t.”

“Punk,” he grumbles, and where did _that_ come from. The answering flash of light in Steve’s eyes could power all of Brooklyn. He doesn’t say no. He feels the corners of his mouth tilt up and relaxes his grip on Steve’s wrist, runs metal fingertips down Steve’s arm, watches goosebumps appear in their wake. _Useful intel._

Steve dries his hair and tugs the towel tighter around him, maneuvers him over to sit on the side of the bed while Steve slips back into the bathroom for a towel of his own. Through the doorway, he catches glimpses of Steve shucking his wet clothes, wringing them out in the sink ( _because_ of course _he does, the damn boy scout_ ) and hanging them over the door of the shower to dry.

He watches Steve wrap a towel around his hips and thinks about him saying _also_ , “you’re _also_ Bucky Barnes,” not denying the part of him that’s still the Winter Soldier, not flinching from it. Accepting it?

So many names – Bucky, James, Sergeant Barnes, Soldier – none of them fit. _All of them fit?_ There are whispers kicking up in the void of his mind and he wants them to be quiet. He squeezes his eyes shut and forces the whispers down.

The brush of fingers on his jaw makes him flinch, breath stuttering in his chest as his eyes fly open, muscles coiling to strike.

Steve starts to pull back, palms out, that damn worried frown between his brows again. ( _No_.) He grabs Steve’s wrists ( _too forceful_ ), draws Steve’s hands to his face and presses them along his stubbled jaw, covering Steve’s hands with his own. He watches until the frown lines disappear and Steve’s mouth softens into a smile again.

“S’okay,” he murmurs, holding Steve’s gaze. “Been a weird day.”

Steve reaches up and brushes a lock of hair off his face, tucks it behind his ear. This is new, he thinks. When he was Bucky, his hair was never long enough to go behind his ears. Steve doesn’t seem to mind.

Steve unwraps the towel he had bundled him up in earlier and pulls back the blanket and sheet. Steve presses him down with a hand on his metal shoulder and drops his own towel without giving the opportunity to admire the miles of perfect golden supersoldier muscle he’s just revealed. Steve just climbs in the bed next to him and pulls the blankets up around them.

“Big spoon or little spoon?” Steve asks. He blinks. He doesn’t think anyone’s ever asked him that before. Steve took care of him in the shower, and with the shit that got dragged up today, he wants to be something good for a while.

Without saying it, he shoves against Steve’s shoulder until Steve rolls away from him, smiling, then snugs up close to Steve’s back. He knows he’s still half hard and he knows Steve will be able to feel it. But holding Steve, sleeping wrapped around Steve, after so long apart, feels right in a way nothing has in a long time, and the broad expanse of Steve’s back is warm and solid enough that even the deepest, darkest ice might melt against it.

He buries his face in the nape of Steve’s neck and breathes deep. Steve hums a little, sleepily, murmurs “missed you.”

He mouths the words, “missed you, too,” against Steve’s shoulder and sleeps through the night, in his bed in Steve’s apartment in Avengers Tower in New York City, for the first time in his new life.

***

It’s much later than he usually wakes when Steve decides to deprive him of his own personal space heater. He locks his metal arm around Steve’s waist and growls against his back, moving to pull Steve flush against him again.

Steve’s voice is quiet, amused. “Buck, I’m gonna piss in your bed if you don’t let me up.” For a split second, he’s back in Brooklyn, wrapped around a much smaller Steve, huddling under the blankets against the cold of their drafty apartment. He shoves Steve now as he had then, but Steve barely moves, _stupid giant supersoldier pile of muscle_.

“Go on, then,” he grumbles, and Steve does. He rolls into the warm spot left behind and argues with his own bladder for a few more moments before following.

Steve doesn’t notice him standing in the doorway, watching. He thinks they must’ve seen each other like this a thousand times, easily. There’s very little privacy in a tenement, much less at war. But this feels different. Deeper than memory, he thinks he knew Steve’s big body almost as well as he had known the smaller one, but it still seems new to notice the broad span of his shoulders, thick with muscle, tapering down to the strong line of his hips and the curve of his ass, flaring out again into powerful thighs, strong calves. _Couldn’t they have done something about his damn bony ankles, though?_

Steve bounces a little on the balls of his feet as he finishes and leans down to flush, and he yelps when one metal and one flesh hand grab him by the hips and steer him into the shower. He flips on the closest showerhead and leaves Captain Befuddlement standing there for a moment, then relieves himself before joining Steve.

“Bucky, were you watching me that whole time?”

He grins and shakes his head. “Not the whole time.”

He steps under the hot water and Steve’s blush might be the most adorable thing he’s ever seen. Does he even have a catalog of adorable things? ( _If not, he should. #1: Steve’s blush_.) Steve blinks at him a few times before stepping away to turn one of the four hundred handles on the wall. Water starts pouring from the ceiling, and he freezes. _Great, now they’ve broken it._

Steve laughs and reaches for him, pulling him under the water. “It’s called a rainfall showerhead. Pretty nifty, huh?” And he’s intrigued, and he will definitely be spending some time under this thing, but it barely registers at the moment because Steve is touching him again.

Steve reaches up and tucks that same wet lock of hair behind his ear, just like he had the night before.

“Bucky…”

“Stevie, you know how you and Sam are always going on about how I should ask for what I want?"

“Yeah, Buck.”

“What if. What if what I want isn’t what you want?”

“Only one way to find out, pal,” Steve shrugs, like this isn’t the weirdest conversation they’ve ever had.

“But what if…” _What if I’m not… what if I can’t be who you want me to be?_

“Bucky.” Steve’s face is serious, but there’s a light in his eyes. “I slept in your bed last night. And I’m standing in your shower, and we’re naked.”

“Yeah, but. That’s all stuff we did before.”

“Did you forget about the kissing?” There’s a tiny smile on Steve’s lips now.

“ _No_ , I didn’t forget about the kissing,” he says, a little indignantly.

“I think you forgot about the kissing,” Steve teases, smiling wider. “You were kind of out of it. I think I might need to remind you.” Steve pauses. “If it’s… if that’s what you want.”

He nods. Steve steps closer.

“You want me to kiss you?” Steve whispers.

“No, Stevie.” Something that’s been twisting inside him snaps. He feels a little dizzy. “ _I_ want to kiss _you_.” _Fuck, asking for what you want is exhausting._

Steve’s smile lights him up inside. Steve slides both arms around his waist, and he reaches up to press Steve back by his shoulders, walking them out from under the rain-shower and backing Steve up against the wall. Steve gives a little grunt of surprise as water starts to spray from six of the tiles around him. _It’s just one thing after another with this ridiculous shower._

The way Steve looks at him makes him think _also – also Bucky Barnes_.

Steve pulls him closer until they’re pressed together shoulder to thigh, muscle and flesh and metal shifting and sliding together, and Bucky touches his lips to Steve’s, feels Steve’s smile against his mouth and suddenly he’s drowning and Steve is oxygen. He slants his mouth over Steve’s and Steve opens up with a moan. Bucky can feel the vibration of it in his chest and the answering growl that rises from his own throat makes Steve’s fingers dig into Bucky’s lats. Bucky curls his metal hand around the back of Steve’s neck and shifts his hips to make their cocks slide together, and Steve gasps into his mouth. He licks over Steve’s teeth, chasing the sound.

Bucky thinks his previous assessment of wanting to kiss Steve for hours was wrong: he wants to kiss Steve _forever_. The soft plushness of his lower lip, slick heat of his tongue, sharp edges of his teeth. Kissing Steve fills him with a funny kind of possessive contentment. 

He feels _warm_.

He feels it unfurl in his belly, building as Steve’s hips surge against his. Steve is making gorgeous whimpering noises and Bucky swallows them down, one after the other. Their hips have found a rhythm, and he can feel every ridge and vein of Steve’s dick like satin over steel against his own. Sometime soon he’s going to get his lips around it, but he couldn’t tear himself away from Steve’s mouth now if the world burned down around them. He settles for sucking Steve’s tongue instead, drawing it between his lips and flicking the tip with his tongue, little kitten-licks before drawing it deeper, promising.

Steve’s hands are frantic against Bucky’s back, grasping, scratching, sliding until he finally grabs Bucky by the hips and _grinds_ against him. And then Steve is coming, hips stuttering against Bucky’s, mouth crushed against Bucky’s lips and a dark, delicious groan rumbling from his chest. Bucky pulls back a hairsbreadth to see the wrecked expression on Steve’s face and wraps his arms tighter around Steve’s shoulders, feeling the hot slick of Steve’s come between their bellies. He snaps his hips against Steve’s, pounding him into the wall, feeling that coil of heat draw tighter and tighter until it snaps and he’s coming, too.

Something wounded and triumphant punches its way out of Bucky’s throat. Steve clings to him, his expression blown wide open before shifting into a shy smile that he buries in Bucky’s neck. Steve’s thumbs draw circles on Bucky’s back; Bucky trails his fingers over the short hair at Steve’s nape.

“We never…” Bucky’s voice catches in his throat.

“No,” Steve agrees. “We never.”

“I wanted to.”

Steve’s voice is thick, wet. “I did, too.”

After a long moment, Steve pushes him back under the rain-shower to wash his hair, and the slip-slide-catch of Steve’s fingers in the long strands goes straight to Bucky’s cock. They discover that the metal hand gliding over Steve’s nipples seems to work as well for him as it does for Bucky. They soap each other’s bodies and find themselves with one hand braced against the other’s shoulder, opposite hands on each other’s dicks, jerking hard and fast, eyes flicking from groin to chest to throat to mouth to eyes and back.

Bucky can’t remember what they could’ve been so afraid of that it kept them from doing this. He has known every kind of fear there is; none of them compare to the fear of being unable to love this man, the one he knew even when he didn’t know himself, the one who looks at him and sees not just the Winter Soldier, not just Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes of the Howling Commandos, not just a victim or a monster, but _Bucky_. Maybe he isn’t him, maybe he won’t ever be him again, but he wants to be. For Steve. For Bucky Barnes from Brooklyn. For himself, whoever he is now.

He comes gasping in Steve’s hand and Steve follows him with his head thrown back and his huge golden body gone rigid except for the pulse of his cock in Bucky’s fist.

***

The shower incident seems to thaw the last of the ice between them. Steve doesn’t hold himself apart so much, although he does still occasionally get this look on his face like he’s having an internal argument that goes _don’t touch Bucky, you’ll trigger him, wait, that’s not true anymore, maybe touch Bucky but telegraph every movement when you do, okay now we’re touching, okay yes, good, okay_.

Seriously, Steve’s such a dumbass. Bucky knows how to say _no_ now.

And the normal stuff follows. Or as normal as it can be, considering he’s literally confined to a tower inhabited by a cast of characters straight out of science fiction. What’s normal when aliens, supervillains, and bio-engineered humans are real?

Apparently, normal is watching too much Netflix, eating a lot of pizza, learning to cook from programs on TV, daily workouts, occasional mission briefings, reading everything he can get his hands on, waking himself up in a cold sweat with nightmare after nightmare, and gradually, cautiously, learning how to be in a room with Steve and more than one other person without his situational awareness going absolutely haywire.

***

On good days, he’s warm and being with Steve feels familiar, easy. Casual touches as they move through each other’s space. Making breakfast together. Bickering over what to watch. Resting his head on Steve’s lap on the couch. Sleeping wrapped up together. Kissing ( _a lot_ of kissing). Mapping the geography of each other’s bodies with lips and tongues and teeth.

On good days, Bucky remembers stickball, Steve’s sketchbooks, the heat and the tar smell of the roof in the summertime. Though it all vaguely feels like it happened to someone else, he and Steve can spend hours reminiscing about Brooklyn. Even the prickly stuff, the backbreaking jobs, Steve’s asthma and endless illnesses, never enough money, never enough medicine, never enough heat, never enough anything. On good days, it doesn’t seem to matter. He can regard it all objectively, even a little fondly, as _formative experience_ , memories with no power to hurt him.

On good days, Bucky can think about the war and remember that it gave Steve the beautiful, powerful body he had always deserved, that matched his ferociously good heart. He can remember the camaraderie of the 107th and the deadly precision of the Howling Commandos without his brain filling with static.

On good days, he thinks _survivor_ instead of _victim_ and blithely beats the shit out of Stark’s (surprisingly effective) AI training dummies.

On good days, he thinks _also Bucky Barnes_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rating has been upgraded for this chapter. It's gonna get a little porny from here on out...


	3. The Third Law

 

The Third Law of Thermodynamics: The entropy of a system approaches a constant value as the temperature approaches absolute zero.

***

He and Steve go to the gym. He begins to understand why Sam calls him Captain On-Your-Left. When the gym’s not enough, they race up and down the tower stairwells. Steve has suggested sparring, which… no. Just no. Bucky knows they’re probably the most closely matched fighters in this building’s bizarre collection of superhumans. But every time he thinks about it, he’s back on the helicarrier, feeling Steve’s zygomatic bone crunch under the metal fist, and it doesn’t matter that he stopped, and it doesn’t matter that he pulled Steve out of the river, and it doesn’t matter that he spent the next however-many months dismantling as much of HYDRA as he could reach, all he can remember is that he tried to kill the one person in the world who _knew_ him. And this leads to very, very bad days.

So no sparring.

And no remembering.

Instead, they team up and take on dozens of the AI training bots at a time. They beat them into submission and race each other back to the apartment to make out in the shower. Bucky, it turns out, is _very_ good at blowjobs.

***

Things were going so well.

And then he wakes up with his hands locked around Steve’s throat. Steve’s hands are on his wrists, not struggling, thumbs stroking. Steve’s voice is strangled and breathless, saying over and over, “Bucky, it’s me, it’s Steve, wake up, come back to me.”

It’s not like they don’t both have nightmares. In the beginning, Steve didn’t think Bucky knew. But now that they share a bed most nights, it’s pointless to pretend. Steve wakes screaming Bucky’s name, wraps Bucky in his arms and doesn’t let go until morning. Bucky wakes drenched in sweat, trembling, freezing, climbs into the shower, turns up the heat, and shivers under the spray.

But this is different. He tried to hurt Steve. Again. He is wrong and broken and can’t be trusted.

He jerks his hands away from Steve’s neck, scrambles backwards off the bed, fumbles his way out of the bedroom and out of the apartment. Steve calls after him, but Bucky can’t stop, can’t stop, _can’t stop_.

He doesn’t know where he goes, or for how long. Just that he _does not want_ to hurt Steve.

He comes back before sunrise and finds Steve sitting on the couch. Steve puts his arms around him and tells him it’s okay, but it’s not, and Bucky knows it. He doesn’t sleep in Steve’s bed for a while.

***

Bad days = more lists, more names.

He writes the date: 18 July, 1985. The location: Nice, France. The target: Shahnawaz Bhutto. Poisoned not, as suspected, by his Afghan wife, but by the man he thought had been sent by the KGB to coordinate Soviet assistance in reclaiming Pakistan from the military regime of Zia ul Haq. The man with winter-blue eyes he had thought so handsome. The man he had taken to his bed. The Asset had ghosted out of the suite and out of the country before the wife had even fallen asleep in her own adjoining room.

The Soldier goes to the gym. The AI training bots scatter and hide. He hunts them down, one by one.

***

On bad days, he doesn’t feel like Bucky.

When it’s like this, he can’t understand how Steve could possibly want to touch him, thinks Steve _wouldn’t_ want to touch him, if he knew… But he doesn’t want Steve to stop touching him. Doesn’t want Steve to know how damaged he is. _(Beyond repair.)_ Because damaged weapons get decommissioned, discarded, destroyed.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter. He has learned to do a nearly flawless imitation of a human being. In the beginning, Steve couldn’t always tell. There was too much Winter Soldier and not enough Bucky. Now Steve knows, can read the person he is now enough to see it. He might not feel like Bucky, or James, or any other names, but Steve is always Steve. Solid, real, warm. Steve touches him, draws him close, keeps him anchored even when his stupid broken brain threatens to tear itself apart with remembering.

Sometimes he can stuff it down, hold it in; Steve has his own shit to deal with. But sometimes, despite his best imitation of Captain Repression, it just comes spilling out.

***

He’s tucked into a corner of the couch, cold even under blanket and hoodie, toes snugged up under Steve’s giant super-thigh for warmth, keeping contact even if only peripherally, and one particular series of images just won’t leave him alone. His mouth is working before his brain has fully caught on.

“They. I. Some… missions weren’t just assassinations.” He keeps his eyes down, not wanting to see Steve’s reaction. He speaks softly, as if that could somehow make it less true, less awful. He feels Steve go warily still beside him.

“Sometimes, the missions… I had to. Get close to the mark. Women. Men. Seduce them. Get information. They died anyway, whether they gave up their secrets or not.” He swallows hard, tasting bile in the back of his throat. He can feel Steve watching him carefully, and he draws his feet out from under Steve’s thigh, shifts away, leans harder against the arm of the couch.

“I know all their names. All the dates. But I’m clean, Steve, I promise,” he says, voice barely a whisper, then, bitterly, “They always made sure I was clean.”

Steve lunges for him and he flinches, anticipating _correction_ , anticipating _cold_ , but Steve only catches his face in those broad, strong hands and tilts it up until they’re forehead to forehead, nose to nose, too close to focus on Steve’s eyes but he knows they’re boring into him anyway, and Steve _growls_.

“You think I care about that? They manipulated you, _used_ you, and you think I’m worried about whether I’m going to _catch_ something from you, you jerk?”

Steve surges up onto his knees and smashes their mouths together, stifling the protest that was working its way to the surface. His hands fist in the blanket to keep from clutching at Steve, even as a tiny thread of relief climbs up his spine. Steve holds his face while kissing a line up his jaw, down his throat, tugging at the neck of the hoodie to get to his collarbones.

In between kisses, Steve murmurs, “And even if I _was_ the kind of asshole who’d be more concerned about myself than you, you’re forgetting one tiny detail, Buck. I can’t get sick. Serum, remember? You probably can’t, either, but that’s _no excuse_ for what happened to you.”

Steve pulls back an inch or two and waits for him to meet his gaze. He can see the gold flecks burning like embers in Steve’s bottomless blue eyes. Steve’s voice, when he speaks again, is low and full of a cold fury the likes of which Bucky Barnes would’ve thought Steve Rogers incapable.

“I. Would. Have killed. Them all. For you.”

He feels his eyes go wide, can feel himself looking at Steve the way he did on the helicarrier. This time, he reaches for Steve, can’t _not_ reach for Steve, and Steve wraps him in his arms, crushing him against that ridiculous barrel chest. He can feel Steve’s heart beating triple time, and he knows his own pulse is racing. _Steve still wants him_.

Steve’s mouth is pressed against his temple, and Steve says, “But _you_ did it. You broke free and they can never touch you again. Bucky, I… _hate_ it, every day, what you lived through. I couldn’t…”

Steve’s voice cracks. “I let you go, I didn’t look for you, and I will never forgive myself for it, but _you_ … God, Bucky, you were so strong, and you _survived_ , and you came back to me and I will _never_. Let you go. Again.”

He feels the silent sobs shuddering through the beautiful big body in his arms. Someday, he’ll tell Steve. He’ll be able to find the words to explain that it was Steve who broke him free, it was Steve’s voice, Steve’s words – _I’m with you to the end of the line_ – that changed everything, that altered his trajectory, that brought him back.

He holds Steve, and Steve holds him, for a long time. Then Steve takes him to bed and holds him some more. He thinks _someday, maybe, Bucky Barnes_.

***

It isn’t a mission. It isn’t anything from the past. It’s now. He’s with Steve. And if he can just keep himself grounded, keep himself _here_ , in this big soft bed with its soft cotton sheets…

Steve kneels between his legs, broad hands sliding over his thighs, the name _Bucky_ like a benediction on his lips. Steve is looking at him the way he looks at art: a little awed, a little envious. Steve holds his hips up off the bed with one big hand splayed against the small of his back. His knees have fallen back against his chest, leaving him exposed and vulnerable, and probably looking ridiculous. But the corners of Steve’s mouth are curling up in what Steve probably thinks is a secret smile. Steve huffs out a little sound of disbelief.

“ _Look_ at you,” Steve breathes. “You’re gorgeous. One of these days, I’m gonna draw you like this.”

The way Steve looks at him… Steve’s a terrible liar. Which means the expression on his face must be the terrifying, inescapable truth. But there is still an ugly, broken part of Bucky that can’t believe it. He lets his metal arm fall across his face.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Steve smirks, pushing his arm away. “I want to _see_ you. And I want _you_ to see _me_.”

Bucky shakes his head and tries to cover his face again. It’s too… _much_. Steve lets Bucky’s hips drop back to the bed and crawls up him.

“Hey, _hey_ , Buck…” he croons, tugging the arm away from his face again. “Bucky, you know I want you. I always want you, god, I can’t _think_ with how much I want you sometimes, but if you’re not ready for this, if you need some time or you don’t want it, just say the word. I’ll be okay. It’ll be _okay_. If I can just hold you, it’ll be okay… okay?”

He looks up into Steve’s sad-puppy face and rolls his eyes.

“Steve,” Bucky says. “Just shut up and fuck me.”

Steve’s smile is like sunshine, always.

He slides slowly back down Bucky’s body, leaving a trail of kisses down Bucky’s midline as he goes, and Bucky catalogues each one: the tip of Bucky’s nose, his mouth, the dimple in his chin, his Adam’s apple, the hollow between his collarbones, his sternum, the dip between each pair of abdominal muscles, the soft spot just under his navel, the frenulum of his cock and one particularly prominent vein along the ridge. Then Steve slides his hands under Bucky’s hips again and tips him back so his legs fall open, exposing the most vulnerable part of him.

“ _Bucky_ ,” he breathes. Suddenly, Steve’s eyebrows quirk and he meets Bucky’s hooded gaze. “Y’know, if you had told me back then that someday I would think someone’s asshole was beautiful, never mind that I’d want to put my mouth on it, I would’ve punched you in the nose.”

Bucky almost chokes on his own laugh. _Jesus, Steve is such a little shit._ Bucky arches his back and locks his legs around Steve’s neck, inner thighs pressing against Steve’s ears, drawing Steve down until his face is buried against Bucky’s groin.

“Punk,” Bucky drawls. “That asshole you think is so beautiful? It’s not gonna fuck itself, y’know.”

Steve doesn’t respond, doesn’t struggle, just opens his mouth and runs his tongue all over everything he can reach, drawing endless lazy circles with his thumbs on Bucky’s hips.

Bucky’s breath hitches on a moan and he relaxes his thighs, letting them fall back to his sides, opening himself to Steve again. Steve looks down at him, mouth still buried between his legs, and Bucky watches Steve’s pupils dilate as his tongue works further and further back. When Steve licks over the tight pucker of his asshole, Bucky’s whole body spasms like he’s been struck with a branding iron. But no, it’s not the icy feeling of going into shock; it’s liquid warmth suffusing his veins.

There is no memory to compete with the sensation of Steve’s tongue on him, licking him open, Steve’s moans vibrating across his skin and into his bones. He feels the corners of his mouth pull up, a funny squiggly feeling in his chest, thinking _no one has ever done this to me –_ with _me – before_.

And then Steve’s tongue is inside him, and it’s the warmest, wettest thing he’s ever felt, and Steve’s looking down at him like he wants to devour him ( _isn’t that what he’s doing already_ ), and Steve’s thumbs are still circling, circling on Bucky’s hips, and he wants, he wants… oh, he _is_ , he’s coming, cock pulsing, spilling down his abdomen and pooling on his chest, and Steve’s tongue chases it, flying up Bucky’s body as he lowers his hips back to the mattress, lapping at the streaks of come as Bucky sprawls breathless beneath him. _Damn, that happened fast._

When he remembers how his limbs work, he catches Steve under the jaw and pulls him up for a kiss, murmuring against slick, swollen lips, “Wanna take care of you, too, Stevie.”

Steve ducks his head shyly, kisses his way down Bucky’s jawline to his ear and whispers, embarrassed, “Already done, jerk.”

Bucky turns to fix Steve with a look, but Steve shifts slightly to the side and flicks his eyes down his body, Bucky’s gaze following to the wet spot spreading across the front of Steve’s sweatpants. He huffs a laugh. Steve giggles. _How can a supersoldier even_ make _a sound like that?_

“You liked it, too, then. Huh, Stevie?” Bucky wraps his arms around Steve and pulls him flush against him again.

Steve buries his face in Bucky’s neck. “Yeah, Buck. I liked it. I want to do it again. Wanna see how many times I can make you come with just my tongue in your ass. Want to?”

Bucky fists his metal fingers in Steve’s hair and pulls him back, just hard enough to draw a happy sigh from Steve’s lips. He holds him there until Steve meets his eyes.

“Yes, Steve. _Consent_. I _fucking_ consent.”

The answer, it turns out, is five.

***

He’s in the gym, his not-a-machine body working through another set of barre exercises without conscious input from his stupid broken brain.

And then he’s in a room full of girls, young women, in black leotards and pink tights, all moving in synchrony, and then there’s one in his arms, green eyes flashing, red hair blazing, unafraid of the metal grip on her waist, and the other dancers are gone. Her gaze is laser sharp and holds him as surely as his hands hold her, and the room with the barre and the mirrors melts away and he’s still holding her, still moving with her, flesh and metal fingers cradling porcelain skin. She was Natalia, in the Red Room.

Then Odessa. The target is an Iranian nuclear physicist. The red haired agent is shielding the man with her body, an obstruction but a human one, and the Soldier shoots through her, killing the scientist. Were it not for the Soldier’s training, it would be easy to miss the flicker of fear-recognition-resignation in the agent’s eyes as she tracks the Soldier’s position. He didn’t know her then.

He knows now, why the looks she gives him tug at the sharp fragments of his memory. He thinks maybe Steve knows, too. Maybe that’s why they haven’t – he can’t exactly say they haven’t had sex, because Christ almighty, how do you have that many orgasms and not call it sex, but he wants to feel Steve inside him, wants to feel himself enveloped by Steve’s warmth, and it just hasn’t happened. He says _I want you, Stevie_ (because he’s supposed to ask for what he wants now), and Steve makes him feel so good, makes him come and come and come, but he wants _more_. But maybe Steve doesn’t. And maybe Natasha is why.

***

That evening, he and Steve eat takeout from Grand Sichuan in a silence that’s more fraught than companionable.

“Natasha,” he says, poking at a slice of chicken with his chopsticks, not looking at Steve.

Steve quirks an eyebrow at him and says with a smirk, “No, _Steve_. Natasha’s the tiny, scary redhead.” Steve is such a twit.

“Okay, smartass,” he says. “What I _mean_ is. Natasha and I were. We had. We have… a history.”

Steve is still and quiet for a moment. Then he says, shrugging with forced casualness, “I know. She told me.”

“She _told_ you?”

Steve has the decency to look _a little_ abashed, but not very much, because he’s a little shit.

“She recognized you, the hit on Fury. I don’t think she wanted me going after you. She told me you shot her, showed me the scar, tried to say she can’t wear a bikini anymore because of it.” Steve’s lips twist a little, maybe at the idea that Natasha would let something like a scar keep her from wearing whatever the hell she wanted.

But Steve doesn’t say anything else, and he doesn’t look like he’s trying to keep a secret from Bucky, which is how he thinks Steve would look if he knew. So maybe Natasha didn't tell him. Maybe that’s not why Steve hasn’t… why they haven’t… If he tells Steve about Natasha, maybe they never will.

“I think,” he starts. “I mean, I remember. Natasha and I were in the Red Room together.”

 _Uh-oh_. There’s that little frown between Steve’s eyebrows. He can’t meet Steve’s worried, searching gaze. But he has to tell him. _(Report, Soldier.)_ This intel could change the outcome of the mission.

“I know ballet.” _(Not relevant, Soldier.)_ “So I know I was in the Red Room. Natasha was there. She was – _we_ – were.” He tries to focus on the burn of chilies on his lips instead of the inferno in his brain. “We were lovers.” The thudding of his pulse is loud in his ears. “Before I shot her.”

Steve is _very_ still and _very_ quiet. A surreptitious glance confirms that Captain Repression is feeling – and then stuffing down – one emotion after another.

Steve finally says, “Okay.” _Okay? How can it be okay?_

“It doesn’t change my feelings for you, Bucky. I’ve known you my entire life, and nothing you can say to me is going to chase me away.” _Steve, you giant idiot._

“Does it,” Steve starts, considering his noodles very carefully for a moment. “Does it change things for you?” _The fuck? Of course it fucking changes things, Steve. Your best friend and a trusted ally, lovers while you were stuck in the fucking ice?_

What he says is, “I don’t want it to. But how can you trust me? I have a whole history you know nothing about, that _I_ know nothing about. What if I have another flashback and try to hurt you again?”

“People aren’t perfect, Bucky. Relationships are messy. People get hurt. But that doesn’t mean we give up on each other. I’m not giving up on you. Are you giving up on me?” Steve is wearing his Captain-America-is-Disappointed-in-You face.

 _Jesus Christ, Steve has such a fucking hero complex._ But maybe he has a point. Steve never walks away from a fight, and Bucky’s too dumb to give up and die. Maybe they’re perfect for each other.

“Fat chance, punk,” he says and snatches a piece of pork from Steve’s plate.

“Watch it, jerk!” Steve replies, and the tension slowly melts away under the burn of chilies and the familiarity of good-natured insults. He might never understand how he got this second chance, but he’s not going to fuck it up.

*** 

He is on the helicarrier. His right arm is dislocated _(oh, how he had screamed, like a wounded animal)_. He is out of weapons, and he is pinned, metal arm, too, under a steel crossbeam. He is approaching mission failure.

The target lifts the beam _(Steve’s arm is a heavy weight around his ribs)_ , and the Soldier struggles out from under it _(he half falls out of bed)_. The metal arm smashes into the target’s face; the target won’t fight back. The mission fails.

The mission fails. The Soldier fails. The Soldier must be punished, wiped, returned to cryo. The Soldier’s right arm is dislocated, but he can reset it before the mission report, one less thing for the techs to repair. The mission failed. _Failure = punishment = coldcoldcold_. He must return to cryo.

There are no techs to operate the cryo chamber. The Soldier must initiate the protocols. He opens the glass door of the tank. So many hoses. He activates them all. Something is not quite right with the tank _(it’s too big)_. The Soldier huddles in a corner _(did the last tank have corners?)_ and waits for everything to go numb.

A tech – the handler? – gives orders with a voice full of panic _(something’s wrong)_. The Soldier is meant to follow orders, but he doesn’t recognize them _(who the hell is Bucky?)_. Maybe now they’ll wipe him, but there’s no chair _(he destroyed the chair)_.

The handler _(blond hair, blue eyes, acknowledged)_ never comes for the Soldier before the techs have hosed off the residue from cryo, sterilized him inside and out, and strapped him into his tac gear. But here is the handler, and he snaps fingers in front of the Soldier’s face. “Soldier! Mission report!” The Soldier anticipates a blow that never comes.

The handler grabs the Soldier by the shoulders, and the metal arm whirrs and clicks, warning. The handler says, “Soldier, you’re injured. I’m going to move you.” _(Something’s wrong; the handler never actually_ handles _the Soldier.)_ He is hoisted over the handler’s shoulder _(is the handler always this strong?)_ and removed from the cryo chamber _(why is it so big?)_.

The handler moves him to the operating table. It’s not supposed to have sheets – the Soldier will just bleed all over them. The handler says, “Lift your arms, Soldier.” The Soldier is wearing clothes _(why?)_. The techs have made an error – no, there were no techs to put him in cryo; the _Soldier_ has made an error. He is not supposed to go into cryo wearing clothes. They are soaking wet. The handler removes them.

The handler pushes the Soldier into a sitting position on the table. He says, “Soldier, mission report.”

The Soldier replies, “Mission failed,” and lies back.

“Open your mouth,” the handler says. The Soldier licks his lips so the bite guard won’t chafe so much. But what tips into his mouth isn’t rubber; it’s liquid. It’s warm, and the taste is neutral, neither salty nor bitter.

“Swallow,” says the handler. The Soldier complies. The handler covers the Soldier with a blanket. The cup is moved again to the Soldier’s mouth; the Soldier swallows what he is given, small amounts at a time. Another blanket is added. This is not protocol.

The Soldier risks a glance at the handler – sometimes the handler’s expression tells him things the handler’s voice does not. The handler _(blond hair, blue eyes, acknowledged)_ is familiar.

The handler is the man on the bridge.

The handler is the target on the helicarrier.

The handler is Steve.

 _The handler is_ _Steve_. No. The Soldier blinks to clear his vision. Steve is – not the handler. The Soldier is not in the vault. The Soldier is in Steve’s bed wrapped in a pile of blankets and Steve has a cup of warm water in his hands and a worried frown on his face. When the Soldier makes eye contact, Steve makes the I-don’t-want-you-to-know-I’m-sad face.

“Hey, pal,” Steve says. “You with me?”

The Soldier chokes back a sound Steve shouldn’t hear, swallows thickly, meets Steve’s gaze, whispers.

“To the end of the line.”


	4. The Zeroth Law

The Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics: If two systems are in equilibrium with a third, then they are in equilibrium with each other.

***

There are a lot of bad days following the self-induced hypothermia incident. He fills one notebook after another with what he remembers about his past. Maybe, he thinks, if it’s written down in black and white, he won’t have to relive so much of it in Technicolor flashbacks.

He had been so sure Steve would push him away after this last one, but Steve is terrible at protecting himself. Can he not see, or does he simply not care that he’s living with a broken weapon with no safety catch?

***

There are good days, too, though for a while they seem few and far between.

On good days, Bucky goes to Avengers Movie Nights and tucks himself between Steve and the corner of the sofa. His situational awareness still goes haywire with more than three people in the room, but the others seem to go out of their way to make him feel comfortable, so he puts on his best Real Human Boy face and tries to tamp down the hypervigilance as much as possible.

The first night, Sam chooses Grosse Pointe Blank. _A hitman with an identity crisis? Subtle, Sam_. But the bad guys go down in the end, and Martin gets the girl, and the soundtrack is excellent ( _adding that to his workout playlist ASAP_ ). Bucky suspects Sam picked this one because the hitman has a therapist, and Sam thinks everybody needs a therapist.

The next movie night, Barton chooses The Bourne Identity. _C’mon guys. Brainwashed government operative with amnesia recovers memories, evades kill orders, rescues the love interest._ Bucky gets that they’re trying to show him he’s not alone, but _these are fictional characters, you idiots_. The fight sequences are good, though, and the chase scene in the Mini Cooper demonstrates decent evasive driving techniques. Another soundtrack to add to the playlist for stair-running days. Barton insists they watch the next two movies in the series (Steve tries to fast-forward past the crash into the river in the second one) but refuses to watch the fourth. He tries to get them to watch The Hurt Locker instead, but war movies in general tend to get overruled. Bucky looks up Matt Damon’s other movies and adds The Martian to the Netflix queue.

***

On bad days, he thinks being with Steve will never be easy again.

On bad days, he feels like the ghost of Steve’s best friend, haunting the liminal space between past _(won’t go back)_ and present _(can’t go forward)_.

On bad days, he thinks Steve is in suspended animation, in a cryo chamber of his own making, waiting and hoping for a dead man to return.

***

They go to the gym, but they don’t train together. The walk back to the apartment is awkwardly silent. He hesitates in the doorway of Steve’s bedroom and watches Steve toe off his shoes and socks. The glimpse of bare feet is strangely intimate, but he feels like he’s watching from far away.

Steve deserves more than this half-life. He deserves a whole person who can give himself fully and freely. Instead he has this broken, brainwashed, cyborg assassin who could snap and kill him at any time. And Steve needs to know it.

Steve catches him watching and takes a step toward him, the lines of his face creasing with concern.

“Bucky?” he asks. “You okay?”

He shakes his head.

“I don’t know if I’m still him, Steve. Bucky, I mean. I’m not the same person I was when I left Brooklyn.”

“We’ve both changed, Buck.”

“Yeah, but deep down, you’re still you, Stevie.”

“Bucky, look at me and tell me I haven’t changed. And I’m not just talking about the serum. War changes everybody.”

“No, Steve, I’m talking about the ways that matter. You’re still that kid from Brooklyn who hates bullies and can’t walk away from a fight.”

“Only worse.”

“Steve, c’mon.” He takes a step into the room.

“No, remember what I told you about the serum? It intensified _everything_. You thought I was stubborn _before_ you went off to the Army? You shoulda seen me at basic. Remember how I was with girls – sorry, _women_? So much more awkward after the serum. I could barely put two words together around Peggy. I know you used to get so exasperated with me for saying everything’s fine when everything is obviously _not_ fine. You don’t think I do that now? Every impulse I have is magnified. Even stupid shit, Bucky. I can’t just like something _a little_ , or think something’s _okay_ , I either love it or I hate it. Lombardi’s pepperoni pizza is the best food ever. Baked beans are the most disgusting thing in the world, and I can’t even stand to look at them. So when you say I can’t walk away from a fight, it is literally that. I _cannot_ walk away, couldn’t if I wanted to.”

Bucky’s head is spinning. “Jesus, Steve, why didn’t you say something?”

Steve laughter is brittle and mirthless. “You think that’s anything new? I can’t add to your burden. Never could. You’ve carried enough for both of us.”

“Stevie, you’ve never been a burden. Not to me,” he whispers.

Steve makes a frustrated sound behind his teeth and steps closer. “And you’re not a burden to me. Never have been, never will be. I’m with you because I want to be. And when I say I _want_ to be, you need to understand that I mean I _desperately_ want to be. And at the same time, it is _the most important thing_ in the world to me that you are here because you want to be. Not because you feel obligated. Not because you don’t know where else to go. Not because you think I’m waiting for Bucky Barnes from 1942 to magically return. We’re both different than we were then. That doesn’t mean you’re not still Bucky.”

The look that passes between them carries a weight of its own, the weight of things left unspoken between them finally emerging from the depths.

He has to say it now or he never will. “The shit that happened to me, sometimes the only way I could bear it is if it was happening to someone else. I know you knew I was different after Azzano. I tried not to let you see it, but I know you did. And then when I fell, I – I didn’t think it could get worse, but it did.” His voice catches and he has to swallow and clear his throat before he can go on.

“It did. So Bucky had to go away. He couldn’t take it, but the Asset could. After a while, Bucky was buried so deep, I couldn’t find him anymore.” He pauses, wondering how much more he should say. _What the hell_ , he thinks, _since we’re baring our wounds, might as well_.

“You know you were the only thing they couldn’t take from me? No matter how many times they wiped me, even when I couldn’t remember my own name, I always remembered you.”

“Oh, Buck…” Steve breathes, reaching for him.

“That Bucky? The one that left you behind in Brooklyn? Sometimes I think the only thing left of him is you.”

Steve wraps him up in giant arms and murmurs in his ear, “You weren’t listening. I’m not the Steve Rogers you left behind in Brooklyn. I’m not looking for Bucky Barnes from 1942. I’ve got _you_. Bucky the sniper, the survivor, the Winter Soldier, the taker of hour-long showers, the tormentor of Stark’s training bots… shall I go on?”

He huffs a little against Steve’s shoulder. “Don’t be stupid, Steve.”

“Oh don’t worry,” Steve retorts. “You’re doing fine _all_ by yourself.”

***

Barton and Romanoff are back from another mission, looking a little ragged, but that could just be jet-lag. Bucky and Steve are making breakfast for them. Steve can’t make eggs to save his life, but he’s pretty good at pancakes.

Barton will be mostly nonverbal until he gets some caffeine, greeting Bucky with a fist bump and grunting his assent to the offer of coffee. Romanoff looks at Barton a little fondly and pats his arm while stirring cream and sugar into her own cup.

“Fancy eggs this morning, James?” she asks, voice a little sleep-scratchy.

“Dill and goat cheese,” he answers. “Looked good on TV.”

“Well at least one of you is doing something productive with his time. Steve, when are you going to learn to make something besides pancakes?” she teases.

“Hey,” Steve protests, pointing at her with the spatula. “These are damn good pancakes, I will have you know.”

“Yeah, they oughtta be, considering they’re the only thing you ever cook,” Romanoff fires back.

“Mrngh,” says Barton, shoving a hand in Romanoff’s face. “Less snark, more breakfast.”

Bucky smiles down at the skillet, gives the eggs a last stir, and scoops them onto a serving plate. As soon as they hit the table, Barton falls on them like a starving man, and Bucky considers the necessity of making another batch. Then Steve’s pancakes are ready, eight at a time off the commercial-size flat-top grill that had seemed unnecessary until he realized how much food two supersoldiers could actually eat.

Bucky rescues the last of the eggs from in front of Barton, splitting them between his plate and Steve’s after making sure Romanoff has some. Steve flips the last pancake off the griddle and joins them at the table. It’s quiet for a minute while butter and syrup and the coffee carafe are passed around.

He takes a bite of blueberry pancake and his eyes drift shut with pleasure. _Do these get better every time Steve makes them?_

Romanoff sighs and rolls her eyes. “Okay, Steve. These are _really good_ pancakes. What’s your secret?”

Steve just laughs around a mouthful and shakes his head.

“Sorry, Nat, your security clearance isn’t high enough.”

Steve jerks and yelps, meaning Romanoff’s just kicked him under the table. Barton snickers. Glancing around at the others, Bucky smiles a little to himself and feels that little squiggly sensation in his chest, the one he’s starting to identify as happiness.

Steve grabs Bucky’s hand suddenly and points at his own mouth with his fork, eyes wide. _Oh no_.

“ _Bucky_ ,” Steve gasps. “These are amazing!” Bucky huffs a little laugh of relief. _Jesus, fuck, Steve._

“Seriously,” Steve babbles, “these are definitely the best ones yet. Will you make these again? Tomorrow?”

This time he feels the smile spread wide. “Sure, Stevie. Anytime.”

The grin on Romanoff’s face is far too knowing, but he has memories instead of whispers about her now, and Barton has finally woken up enough to start recapping the mission to Steve, so Bucky finishes his pancakes and drinks his coffee.

When breakfast is finished and the spies have gone, Bucky opens a new notebook and starts writing down the good stuff, too.

***

They’ve both been half-awake for a while. Bucky’s dozing, tucked up against Steve’s side, Steve’s arm around his shoulders. His head is pillowed on one ridiculously giant pectoral muscle, his metal arm draped possessively across Steve’s ribs. With one hand, Steve combs lazily through Bucky’s hair. With the other, he covers Bucky’s metal hand, thumb tracing circles over the plates at the wrist.

Steve shifts almost imperceptibly beside him, lifts Bucky’s hand to his lips, and kisses each silver fingertip in turn. Then he does it again, each fingertip, one by one. Then he flicks his tongue out and _licks_. Bucky’s eyes fly open, fixing on Steve’s mouth. Steve smiles and does it again, licking over the blunt pads of each metal finger. And then he sucks the smallest one into his mouth, drawing it in all the way to the third articulated knuckle.

Bucky can’t feel it the way he would his flesh fingers, with their highly sensitive nerve endings, but he feels the temperature and pressure and movement of Steve’s tongue, and he can see Steve’s lips pucker around the metal as his cybernetic finger disappears into Steve’s mouth, and if he didn’t know about Steve’s metal arm kink before, it’d be hard to miss now.

As Steve sucks each of Bucky’s fingers the same way, tongue swirling along the underside, he meets and holds Bucky’s gaze. By the time he gets to Bucky’s thumb, Steve’s eyes have gone dark and half-lidded, pupils nearly swallowing the blue of his irises, and Bucky is harder than he can ever remember being.

“ _God_ , Stevie.”

Steve hums in response, and the way it reverberates along the plates of the arm makes Bucky’s breath stutter in his chest.

It’s obscene how gorgeous Steve looks with Bucky’s thumb buried to the hilt in his mouth. Bucky’s arm clicks and whirs in agreement, eliciting a whine from Steve’s throat that sends shivers up Bucky’s spine.

Steve pulls Bucky’s thumb away with a slick, suggestive sound and uses his leverage on Bucky’s wrist to draw that hand down his own body. Bucky’s lips tilt up in a knowing smile, but when Steve doesn’t curl Bucky’s fingers around his cock, Bucky’s eyebrows arch in surprise. Steve’s blush is _fucking_ adorable _(so adorable, in fact, it’s going in the Catalog of Adorable Things_ twice _)_.

Steve presses two of Bucky’s fingertips against the smooth patch of skin behind his balls. He hides his face in Bucky’s hair and murmurs, “I want your fingers in me. I want you to work me open, and then I want you to fuck me.”

“Jesus, _fuck_ , Stevie.” Bucky’s cock throbs. _Christ, he could come just from Steve talking like that._

And Bucky knows now how difficult it can be to ask for what you want, but his Stevie is _so_ brave and _so_ strong, and far be it from Bucky to ever deny him anything, especially _this_. He tips his head back to meet Steve’s eyes and gives Steve the sweetest, gentlest kiss he can (which is a challenge, considering how desperate his body is).

The look on Steve’s face – Bucky thinks he will spend the rest of his life trying to deserve the way Steve looks at him. He swallows thickly around the tightness in his throat and makes a couple of abortive attempts before he can croak, “Yeah… Yes. I want that, too.”

Steve reaches into the top drawer of the bedside stand and retrieves the lube. Bucky holds out his metal hand and Steve pours out a generous amount. Bucky slicks Steve’s cock first, which draws a strangled cry from Steve’s throat and makes his hips thrust up. Bucky grins. Really, Steve should’ve seen that coming. He holds his hand out for more lube.

“Jerk,” Steve smiles.

“Punk,” Bucky answers back. “You love it.” He makes a _gimme_ motion with his metal fingers, and Steve obliges.

“Please, Bucky. I want you so much.”

Bucky _tsks_ and shakes his head. “So greedy,” he murmurs, pressing his mouth against Steve’s chest. He draws the back of his hand, slightly slippery now with excess lube, over the smooth skin and hard muscle of Steve’s abs, over the ridge of his cock (even warmer than the rest of him), and lets the lube spill from his palm over Steve’s balls to run down the cleft of his ass. His fingers follow, circling and pressing, feeling Steve’s hole flutter and clench in anticipation.

Steve’s hand fists in Bucky’s hair, mindlessly clutching and releasing, sending little shocks of pleasure sparking across Bucky’s scalp every time. It’s distracting, but it feels too good to ask Steve to stop.

Bucky slowly presses his index finger against Steve’s hole and pulls back, pushes in and pulls back, a fraction of an inch deeper each time, and as the first joint breaches the ring of muscle, he sinks his teeth into Steve’s pectoral muscle, right above his nipple.

Steve comes with a shout, surprising them both. As the orgasm rolls through him, Steve starts to laugh, and Bucky smiles against the bite mark and soothes it with his tongue.

“Liked that, huh?” he asks, lips never breaking contact with Steve’s skin.

Steve’s laugh turns into a moan. “God yes, Bucky, don’t stop.” _Yeah, never gonna get tired of hearing that, Stevie_.

Bucky withdraws for a moment to adjust their positions, hooking Steve’s leg over his hip for better access. He trails his metal fingers up the inside of Steve’s thigh, lets them graze across Steve’s sac, and smiles at the shiver that elicits. He presses his finger against that little ring of muscle again, and this time his finger slips in easily. He slides it slowly deeper, and just as slowly withdraws it. Presses in again, this time twisting as he goes. As Steve adjusts, Bucky adds another finger, and another, gradually working Steve open, making his movements so maddeningly slow and careful. Meanwhile, Bucky sucks a multitude of tiny bruises into Steve’s chest and shoulder. Each suck, each bite sends a little jolt through Steve’s body that Bucky can feel in his metal fingers and all the way up his arm.

Steve writhes around three of Bucky’s fingers and moans incoherently, finally catching his breath enough to beg, “ _Please_ , Bucky…”

And Bucky cannot – does not _want_ to – say no when Steve begs so sweetly.

He slips his fingers free, maneuvers them both so he’s kneeling between Steve’s legs, and takes a moment just to look. Steve’s pupils are blown, his expression riding the edge between pain and pleasure, and yes, the World’s Most Adorable Blush does go all the way down.

Steve pulls his knees up and back, opening himself to Bucky, and whines. Bucky feels the widest smile he’s ever smiled spread across his face. He slicks himself with the remaining lube on his palm and fits the head of his cock against Steve’s entrance, watches Steve’s expression go from wrecked to totally blissed out as he pushes inside in one long, deliciously slow thrust. He holds them both there for a moment, letting Steve adjust, hell, getting _himself_ under control enough to _do_ anything about it. He leans down to press his forehead against Steve’s before he starts to move.

Steve’s cock is trapped between their bellies, pulsing and throbbing with every thrust. Bucky wants to watch Steve’s face and taste Steve’s skin and swallow every gasp and groan that escapes Steve’s lips. He’s not going to last, not with the beautiful, filthy sounds coming from Steve’s mouth, or the delicious slick heat enveloping his cock.

Steve drags Bucky’s hand down to encircle Steve’s dick and wraps both of his big hands around Bucky’s. Each movement of Bucky’s hips thrusts Steve’s cock into their fists, and then Steve is coming, spilling over their tangled fingers, chanting Bucky’s name, and Bucky follows, buried deep inside Steve, a strangled cry on his lips.

The way Steve looks at him makes his heart flip over, and Bucky knows for a fucking fact that he would burn down the world for Steve, but emotions are hard and Bucky is still so broken and the only word that he can form is “Punk,” and he presses it into Steve’s shoulder with his mouth and kisses it away.

Steve takes Bucky’s face in his hands and his smile lights up the whole world. “Jerk,” he says, and he wraps Bucky in his arms and kisses him until they’re both hard again, and when Bucky slides back inside Steve, the second time is even better than the first.

***

Bucky doesn’t take so many hour-long showers anymore. When he does, he’s usually not alone.

He’s discovered that Steve can come in 10 seconds flat with Bucky’s mouth on his cock and a handheld massaging showerhead pulsing over his balls.

He’s also discovered that Steve comes hardest when he pushes Bucky back against the wall, wraps Bucky’s legs around his hips, and thrusts slowly, agonizingly, impossibly deep, while Bucky strokes himself with his metal hand.

But the depth of feeling that shines in Steve’s eyes when they’re curled up together and not fucking, that feels like a warm weight wrapping around his bones, threatening to burst from his own breast – Bucky thinks he would willingly die and be remade a thousand times if he could always come back to that feeling.

***

On good days, Bucky thinks he could be a weapon again someday. Now that it’s his finger on the trigger. If it meant he was protecting Steve. Because Steve will put himself out there with or without Bucky. He has a good team. He rarely comes back from a mission with serious injuries (turns out, when Steve’s not being almost murdered by his not-so-dead-best-friend-turned-HYDRA-assassin, he’s pretty hard to kill). But he’d been nearly unstoppable with Bucky at his flank, and the Bucky who is the Winter Soldier is even better.

They still don’t spar against each other; now, they team up and spar against Thor, or Barton and Romanoff. Or sometimes Thor, Barton, _and_ Romanoff. (There’s not enough room for wings or flying suits in the gym, so no Sam, Stark, or Col. Rhodes). Team Cap always wins.

So maybe someday, he could be an Avenger. If they needed an extra weapon. Now that he knows. The Winter Soldier is, first and foremost, also Bucky Barnes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I think I just *barely* made it before the wide release of Civil War. If you read this before you see the movie, yay, you're still in Let's Pretend CA:CW Isn't Happening verse. If not, welcome to my Civil War Never Happened AU.
> 
> And hugs and kisses and thanks and puppies and rainbows to all of you who've stuck with it and left kudos and comments. Ya'll are awesome!

**Author's Note:**

> Now with a related [series of one-shots and deleted scenes!](http://archiveofourown.org/series/453616)


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